


The Song of Iowa

by EntreNous



Series: The Song of Iowa [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Meet the Family, Post-Chosen, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-13
Updated: 2006-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-27 00:53:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EntreNous/pseuds/EntreNous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After some unsuccessful Slayer-seeking, Xander's stuck in Iowa the night before Thanksgiving.  Good thing he runs into Riley Finn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for the [Music of Pain ficathon](http://www.livejournal.com/users/crazydiamondsue/82391.html#cutid1), for which participants chose a country song to inspire a fic. The song I chose was Merle Haggard's [Always Wanting You](http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/haggard-merle/always-wanting-you-487.html), but the sadness of that song turns up more in the backstory than in the present-day events of the narrative. This includes references to past Riley/Sam.

“Store closes at three,” the girl sitting on a stool behind the register reminded Xander in a bored tone. “Thanksgiving Eve.”

"Thanksgiving Eve? They’re always updating the holidays on me,” Xander said. He put down the plastic travel mug he’d been eyeing. “Does every holiday get its own Eve now?”

“Bring your purchases up to the front,” she continued in a louder voice even though Xander was pretty much the only person in the store.

“So fine, I’ll buy something and leave, and you can close up. But I can’t do that until I figure out what here really says ‘Iowa’.” He waved the pack of playing cards encased in commemoratively decorated plastic at her in a gesture meant to indicate a search for the essence of the state he was planning on departing come morning.

She popped her gum and looked past him to the display of clocks on the opposite wall.

"Is it cheese?" Xander asked seriously. He leaned on the counter, speaking confidentially. "Because I'm headed away from here without the thing I was supposed to get, so I'm thinking consolation prize. Or at least a souvenir. And if cheese is what brings the whole idea of Iowa home -- or you know, not home, if you're not from here -- then cheese it is."

She glared at him before picking up a price gun to slap a sticker on the bottom of a shot glass. "No. It's not cheese." Somewhere in the back of the store the ping-pong of an electronic sensor went off, announcing another customer.

"What is the state with the cheese?" Xander asked curiously. He knew he was irritating the clerk by prolonging the exchange. Plus it wasn't like he would have found the conversation so thrilling under normal circumstances.

But then these circumstances -- they were and they weren't normal. He'd been held over a few more days than he'd expected in this small town outside of Des Moines, trying to determine if the young woman that Willow had sent him here to find was a slayer or not. As it turned out, not, though she oddly reminded him of Buffy when he had first met her, blond and friendly (and curvy in ways now-Buffy just no longer was). But she ended up being a normal girl, whatever that meant these days.

And seeing her normal girl life, with a younger sister that she'd gleefully tormented as Xander quizzed her and her parents on the recent events that had identified her as a Person of Interest to the Council, with a normal-girl room that was too pink for her now that she was “ _fifteen_ already!” as she'd explained to Xander emphatically, with a normal-girl impatience with everything that didn't have to do directly with her . . . well, Xander was more glad than anything else that it turned out that she wasn't one of the hundreds of Chosen Ones. Seemed too bad to throw a wrench into all of that non-vampire fixated, non-monster focused adolescence.

But now he felt a little purposeless, heading back to Cleveland empty-handed, and a little uneasy being on his own without the accustomed gaggle of chattering teenage girls surrounding him and scoffing at him and telling him about their latest problems and crushes. Hence the ingenious two-pronged solution: buying of cheap memorabilia and pestering of teenage girl-clerk.

"The state _with_ the cheese?" the salesgirl asked in confusion, her price gun hovering in mid air.

" _Famous_ for cheese," Xander clarified.

"Um . . . " She considered for a moment and then shrugged.

Xander sighed as though the girl had been pressing him for details and had finally succeeded in pulling the full story out of him. "Okay, if you must know, it was a _person_ I was supposed to get, not a thing. I'm not trying to be insensitive, but with trip after trip trying to find girl after girl, it gets a little tiring."

She pointed the price gun at him. "Are you, like . . . a talent scout?" Xander noticed that she didn't stand any straighter, but she did smile at him winningly.

"Not a question you should be asking a strange man, okay?" Xander advised her. "Men -- notorious liars, and -- wait, if I say yes, will that get me a discount?"

She sighed and stopped smiling.

"Is it _The Music Man_ , the thing that Iowa is really all about?" He put down the playing cards that he'd been holding. "There’s that song. Do they make you sing that _Music Man_ song at your eighth grade graduation? The things they do to kids . . ."

"Well, I don't remember what they made us sing, but I'm pretty sure we didn't sing some song about a ‘music man,’" the girl said. She pulled a fashion magazine out from under the counter and then pointedly looked at her watch.

"Oh, come on," a male voice said, and Xander turned slowly, recognizing the warm tone he remembered better than he thought he had. "The state song! _That's_ what you sing at your eighth grade graduation."

Then the man was walking over, and -- okay, easy smile, confident stride, boyish cheerfulness -- “Riley?” Xander asked in amazement.

Then he got a hold of himself. “Well, what is the state song?"

Riley laughed. "It's 'The Song of Iowa'."

"'The Song of Iowa?'" the clerk repeated skeptically.

Riley shook his head. "Sung to the tune of ‘O Tannenbaum’?"

She looked back and forth between them blankly and then sighed again.

“Hey,” Xander said, sticking out his hand out of habit from meeting people and parents and trying to be polite.

Riley gave him a look that was half amusement and half disbelief, and pulled Xander into a hug.

"Home for the holidays?" Xander asked when the bear-hug had started to go on just a little on the long side. Riley started slightly, still in his arms, but then backed up and nodded.

"Right. That's . . . yeah, that's why I'm here," he said.

"Picking up some souvenirs for the Mrs.?" Xander asked. "Mrs. Finn -- how weird is that? Sam, right? Is she here with you? Or did she take one look at the cold and snow that is Iowa in winter and run like hell?" He looked past Riley, glancing at the door of the shop.

“No. She’s not -- we’re divorced,” Riley said. “So I guess . . . she kind of ran like hell.”

"Way to go," the clerk muttered under her breath in Xander’s general direction as she flipped over another page of her magazine.

“Wow. I’m sorry,” Xander said. “I --” He shook his head, tried to open his mouth, but other words weren’t coming.

“I heard about Anya,” Riley said quickly. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Yeah,” Xander said after a pause. They both examined the linoleum in front of the other one’s feet.

“Wait.” Riley glanced at Xander as though he had materialized in front of him just at that moment. “Xander, what are you doing here in Iowa?”

* * *

Explaining why he was in Iowa got them through burgers, fries, chocolate milkshakes, and two rounds of coffee at a diner four blocks south of the souvenir shop. Luckily, some of the back story had already been filled in for him, so Xander didn’t have to start in by saying, “Well, since you last left Sunnydale in your dramatic night flight out of town on a helicopter . . .”

No, Riley knew all about the end of days in Sunnydale and how the town had sunk right into the ground. He knew a great deal about those last few months in California, up to and including what had happened with Xander’s eye, how Spike had saved the world, how Buffy had headed to Europe.

He did however seem surprised that there were bunches of slayers now, some of them found, some of them still in need of finding. And he didn’t know that there was a Hellmouth in Cleveland, or even that there were a couple of branches of the Council now, with Buffy and Giles pretty much running the show from Rome and London respectively.

"So you’re still working with Buffy,” Riley said with a smile.

“In a roundabout sense, in that our names go on the same kind of business cards,” Xander said. “I mean, yeah, we’re both in the good fight, but with us the good fight has gone global. I hardly see her these days, though we talk some when we can.” He paused and took a sip of his water. “I mean, if you wanted me to give her your number -- tell her what’s going on with you, and now that . . . with Sam . . .”

“No, no,” Riley said absently, more casual about his implicit dismissal of any feelings left for Buffy than Xander would have thought possible. So Xander dropped that particular topic.

Instead he crumpled his napkin and realized with a start that it was kind of odd to have this extended of a conversation with a guy’s voice shaping the replies. It wasn't so very often he heard his name pronounced in guy-tones. If he thought he'd been completely immersed in girl culture and girl power in the final days before Sunnydale had sunk into the earth, he knew differently now. After returning from Africa and setting up a U.S. branch of the council in Cleveland, he'd spent way too much time talking to girls who might be junior slayers, corralling girls who had agreed to relocate to a still-humming Hellmouth and start their training there, and managing girlish trials and tribulations of the young women who were strong and fast and proud but still missed their families and thought homework was stupid and argued about whose turn it was to do the dishes.

So male voice, not so typical. Seeing Riley, out of the blue and after all this time, very strange.

On the other hand, sitting with Riley Finn in a greasy spoon, talking about vampires and monsters and slayers, oh my -- that felt damn normal.

“It’s pretty wild, seeing you here,” Riley continued with a grin.

“I’m freaking you out, aren’t I?” Xander asked with raised eyebrows.

Riley laughed. “Not so much. Just kind of an unexpected intersection, you here in my home state with news about a slayer-training corporation, and me . . .”

“And you here too,” Xander pointed out. “Which hey, if I was going to run into anyone I knew in Iowa, I would . . . not think it would be you. Because aren't you supposed to be out in the wilds of . . . ?" Xander paused as he recalled that he wasn't really sure where Riley had been in the wilds of the first time around.

"Not anymore," Riley said with a forced grin.

“New stuff, huh?” Xander asked, lowering his voice and making a come-hither gesture with his fingers. “Very hush-hush? Do you have a new secret code name?”

Riley stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again, more easily this time. “I’ve missed you, Xander.”

Xander felt his jaw drop just a little. “You missed me?”

“What are you doing for the holiday?” Riley asked him.

Xander blinked. “Oh. Thanksgiving, tomorrow? Heading back to Ohio. Most of the slayers and trainers and council people are out of town on vacation -- though we had a hell of a time explaining what the hell Thanksgiving _was_ to a few of them.”

“So you’re hanging out with friends back home?” Riley asked, suddenly gruff. “Doing something with . . . I don’t know, are you seeing anyone?”

“No. And no,” Xander said before he drained the last of his coffee. “Just going back. There’s usually so much group-type stuff going on, though, that I don’t mind. It’ll be nice to have a little quiet.”

“Not on Thanksgiving,” Riley said firmly. “People aren’t supposed to be by themselves on Thanksgiving. _You’re_ not supposed to be alone on Thanksgiving.”

Xander frowned. “Where am I supposed to be?”

* * *

“How nice to have another guest,” Riley’s mother said warmly. She took Xander’s duffle bag from him before he had a chance to protest.

“You sure I’m not putting you out, Mrs. Finn?” Xander asked. He tried to snatch his bag back, but she was too quick for him.

“Xander -- it is Xander?” When he nodded, she went on as she led them through the front door and into a foyer. “And I’m Pam. It’s not as though I’m counting pork chops, for goodness’ sake. It’s Thanksgiving -- of course there’s plenty to go around. And I wouldn’t think of having you stay anywhere else,” she continued, just as Xander was about to offer that he’d be fine with another night or two in the hotel down town. “We’re always happy to have a friend of Riley’s stay with us.” She held the bag out, and Riley took it automatically. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”

“She’s scary,” Xander said to Riley under his breath after Riley had loped up the stairs behind him to show Xander his room.

“You better believe it. Watch out for flying pieces of dough when she starts putting the pies together tonight,” Riley replied.

They walked into a good-sized room and Riley swung Xander’s bag onto a steamer trunk against the far wall. “I’m just next door,” he said. “And my folks are in the other wing of the house, so they won’t care if we’re up late or whatever.”

Xander blinked in the face of a feeling that he’d somehow entered into a boy-type slumber party. “So . . . just you and your folks for Thanksgiving?”

“Well, there’s my mom’s cousin Jill. And her second husband, Carl. Their kids. Then there are my first-cousins, Margie’s boys -- Margie’s my dad’s sister, but she and her husband go on a cruise every year at Thanksgiving. Uh, my dad’s other sister Beth and my uncle Bill, their daughter Katie and her husband Rich, Katie’s son Luke and the baby -- I can’t remember the baby’s name. My mom’s sisters Lynn and Jane with their husbands, their kids. Some of my dad’s second cousins usually stop by for dessert. And . . . ” Riley paused.

“You have a crazy-huge family,” Xander observed. “Good thing you have a big house and can fit them all in.”

Riley rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah. We used to do it at my grandparents, but when they passed on . . . my mom kind of took up the torch. It’s nice, though, having a big family. Especially for big occasions like this.

Xander took a deep breath. “But you are going to give me a scorecard to tell them all apart, right?”


	2. Chapter 2

"He's been lonely, you know," Pam said quietly.

"Yeah," Xander said. "I mean, I didn't know, but yeah, that makes sense." He’d been enlisted to help her set the table while Riley took his cousins out with the dogs down to the woods behind the house. 

There were multiple dogs, only one of which Xander had made an acquaintance with, and that was more the dog enthusiastically snuffling Xander’s crotch while Riley laughed until Pam called the dog off. But there were two more, apparently, which stayed outside “in the barn,” as Riley had said with no irony whatsoever. 

Now they’d all gone to work off some of the jittery boy-energy that Riley’s cousins -- Dave and Jackson -- had been displaying ever since they’d arrived half an hour ago. Pam had all but tossed them out the door when the younger one, Jackson, decided he would start polishing off her freshly-baked rolls as a snack before dinner.

In a way, it was okay with Xander to have a break from hanging with Riley. Not that he felt uncomfortable or weird around him after such a long absence. Oddly, they’d fallen back into what seemed like a familiar pattern the night before, eating a bunch of popcorn, arguing about whether D.C. or Marvel was better (Riley was all for D.C., while Xander was a Marvel man), and watching half of a marathon of an old season of “The Real World”. Later, they had stayed up talking in Riley’s room. They’d started on the bean bag chairs Riley said he’d had since middle school, eventually moving to lie side by side on Riley’s double bed as time wore on, yawning as they updated each other on the random things that had happened since they last saw one another. Xander noticed they’d kept pretty much to demon talk and anecdotes about friends or unit members. Neither of them pressed the other to talk about Sam, or about Anya. 

But it had been weird, waking up with a start when sunlight streamed into the room to find himself still on the bed with Riley. They’d conked out right on top of the covers, though Xander still had the blanket he’d bogarted down in the basement when they had been watching television, and Riley had managed to twist some of the comforter onto himself while he slept. 

Weirder still when Xander paused to really look around the room now that it was bright outside. It seemed . . . too lived in for just a holiday visit. Like Riley had maybe been staying there longer than a week. Or possibly even living there.

So when Jackson and Dave had tried to tug him along, he’d been sort of relieved when Riley’s mom decreed that he had to stay and help her. Riley seemed disappointed, but he recovered pretty fast, joking with his cousins and chasing along with them and the dogs as the trip to the woods apparently became a race.

Even so, table setting was not exactly his forte. The prospect of having to help someone set a fancy holiday table for a huge family, none of whom he’d ever met, was slightly freaksome.

But then, suspiciously, when Xander arrived in the dining room to lend a hand, the table was already set almost entirely. There were small arrangements of flowers, a table runner on a table cloth, various candles and other decorations, even wine glasses and water goblets. Only the plates and silverware remained to be set in place, and Xander’s palms got a little sweaty when he realized that Riley’s mom had more or less engineered a fake-chore to get a chance to speak to him alone. 

At least he wasn’t answering questions posed by both of the Finn parental units. Riley’s dad, Ross, was outside in the yard, doing something that involved Cornish game hens and a fryer, or possibly a smoker. On the other hand, Xander would have put money on getting the exact same number of questions even with Ross Finn in the room. Though Riley’s father seemed friendly enough, he wasn’t a big talker, either smiling genially with an occasional “well now!” or fiddling with different appliances and muttering under his breath, while Pam chattered on about this or that.

“Riley told me about what happened to your girlfriend,” she said quietly. “I was real sorry to hear about that.”

“Thanks,” Xander said. He took the silverware that she handed him and concentrated on arranging the setting following the pattern she’d made at the other places. There were two or three leaves inserted into the table, making room for the number of chairs -- Xander stopped counting after fifteen. And in the mint-themed kitchen there was an additional kids' table, made from the regular maple table with a card-table pushed up to it, similar-colored tablecloths linking the two. 

“How long has it been?” she asked.

“Year and a half,” Xander said. It occurred to him that he hadn’t been consciously marking how long it had been since Anya was killed, how long it had been since the destruction of Sunnydale. But the answer came out of his mouth as soon as he had opened it, like something inside of him had quietly been keeping track. 

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “That’s just about -- with Riley and Sam. Of course, Sam isn’t -- that is, I only meant --“

“How did things end with Riley and Sam?” Xander asked, in part to avoid an apology that would be awkward for her to give and weird for him to field. Besides, he wasn’t quite sure what exactly Riley had told his mom, and he didn’t have it in him to play along with some false tale about how Anya had died.

“It was when Riley got hurt,” Pam said, her voice lowered.

Xander paused, salad fork suspended in his hand. “Riley got hurt?”

“You two really haven’t been in touch, have you?” she tsked. “He always . . . I don’t know where he got the idea that he had to keep such things to himself. Well, their unit was working on -- to be truthful, I’m not sure quite what it was. But they saw conflict of some kind. And Riley -- he saved two of the boys with him. But his arm got hurt somehow in the middle of everything.” She gave Xander a half-smile and patted his shoulder as she moved past him. 

“You can’t even tell.”

“No, well -- it doesn’t keep him from doing much at all. Just . . .”

“Keeps him from fighting,” Xander finished for her.

She nodded. “And you, with your . . .” Her fingers fluttered, as though she wanted to gesture towards Xander’s eye-patch, but was too polite to say or point directly to the object of her questioning. “That happen at the same time . . . with your --”

“Oh, no,” he said quickly. “A little while before.”

“Sounds like it was a real hard time for you.”

And that was quite possibly the understatement of, well, forever. But it sounded so heartfelt, and Pam seemed so genuinely sorry, that Xander gave her a quick nod when he found that he couldn’t answer her.

She carefully laid out more plates while Xander trailed after her and arranged silverware around them.

“And Riley and Sam -- before or after what happened to Riley’s arm?” he asked after a minute.

“Oh, yes.” She put down her stack of plates and straightened the tablecloth needlessly. “Well. It was after Riley hurt himself.”

“Oh, wow. That’s -- ”

“It wasn’t because of his arm,” she rushed on. “She didn’t leave him because of the injury. Only he couldn’t travel with the unit anymore -- ‘course, they gave him a medal along with his discharge, and a pension that . . . I know that soldiers can do all right in those things, but they gave Riley more than I thought they would.” 

“That’s good,” Xander said awkwardly. “Was it that -- did he feel weird, because he was injured, and that made things tense? Or was it that Sam had to stay with the unit, and the long-distance thing . . .”

She looked down at the napkin that she’d twisted in her hands seemingly without realizing it. “They gave Sam the option to get a discharge. She hadn’t been in the service as long, so the pension wouldn’t have been -- but the jobs are good after military, working in contracting, or . . . and then with Riley’s pension, and both of them able to get other kinds of jobs. But as it turns out, she wanted to stay.”

“Wait a second,” Xander said slowly. “She could have left. And Riley _had_ to leave. And she didn’t want to go with him.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Pam replied. “I think she was . . . Riley said she loved helping so much, loved being part of the unit, part of the . . . what was it he said . . .?”

“The good fight,” Xander said with a dry throat.

“That was it,” she said, and gave him a curious half-smile. “And she didn’t want to give it up. He said he understood. It hurt him, I could tell, but . . .” She shrugged and refolded the napkin neatly, replacing it just above the plate.

Xander nodded and they were both silent for a moment. “That sounds like him,” he said finally. “That he --”

“So what’s going on?” Riley asked from the doorway. Both Pam and Xander started.

“Oh, Riley, you’re back,” Pam said. She brushed away at her apron as though it had crumbs on it. 

He laughed uneasily. “Why do I feel like I just interrupted something that was all about me?”

When Pam’s gaze flickered to Xander he smiled. “Because your mom was just saying how she wanted to show me your baby pictures. And hey, I said I was pretty sure you wouldn’t like that. But then she said she’d show me anyway while you were out.”

“Mom,” Riley said in an aggravated tone.

“What, are you nude in them?” Xander asked teasingly. 

Riley looked at his mom sharply. “Look, that one picture of me on the blanket holding the container of talcum powder, you said you weren’t going to show to anyone ever again.”

“Now I _have_ to see that one,” Xander told Pam earnestly. “And then if you could just find me a scanner and an internet connection . . .”

She laughed. “Oh, hush. I should go to see to those pies. You boys go ahead and watch movies or whatever else you’d like to do, but remember the rest of the company is coming in an hour and a half.”

“Come on, Xander. Dave and Jackson already put in _A Christmas Story_ ,” Riley said with a grimace.

“You know the holidays are coming when the _A Christmas Story_ ing begins,” Xander replied as he followed Riley out into the kitchen and down the basement stairs. 

* * *

Almost two hours later, Riley’s mom called them all back upstairs to a house full of people.

After making the rounds of introductions -- Pam had settled on presenting Xander by calling him “a friend of Riley’s from grad school,” which left Xander explaining over and over that he wasn’t a professor or a psychologist -- Xander settled on the couch with his beer and watched the Finns and Riley’s-Not-Finns-Relatives mix and mingle and sample appetizers. 

At one point a group of women gathered near the couch to exclaim over the baby while his grandmother Beth held him out for display.

“He’s so good!” one marveled. “He loves his grandma, yes he does!”

“And quiet,” said another, giving the baby a friendly poke. “Not a peep out of him all this time.”

“Katie says he’s a real good eater,” Beth said proudly. “And he looks just like a Finn -- but don’t tell Bill I said that. Poor man thinks the baby has his nose and ears.”

They all laughed, and then suddenly they were looking expectantly at Xander.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, startled. “That’s . . . that’s one fine baby.”

“Would you like to hold him?” Beth asked. 

“Uh . . . “ Xander held his arms out to forestall any type of baby-holding on his part, but Beth simply installed the baby in the cradle of his arms before he could say boo about it. 

“This might not be a hot idea,” Xander muttered as the baby sneezed and flailed his chubby arms about. “I don’t know if babies like me or not, and is this really the day we want to test that?”

Beth smiled brightly as though Xander had just informed her that he wanted to hold her grandson for the rest of the day, and went back to chatting with the other women. 

Riley flopped down next to him and slung his arm around the back of the couch -- also, incidentally, sort of around Xander and the baby -- and held out a finger of his other hand for the baby to grab. “Xander, you can manage holding him for two minutes. He’s not going to bite your head off.” 

Xander looked down at the baby, who seemed a bit red-faced as he gripped Riley’s finger tightly. “You don’t know that, okay?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s got hardly any teeth,” Riley pointed out.

“Why don’t you hold him then,” Xander hissed back. “And where were you a second ago when they were handing out babies?”

“I don’t know.” Riley’s voice was serious, but Xander could tell he was about to smile. “He looks pretty happy with you. If I take him away, he might start crying.”

“Crying?” Xander echoed.

At that the baby made a curious gurgling sound, and Xander decided he better prevent a crying jag but quick. So he held him up and bounced him quickly against his legs, the baby’s toes and rounded-bottomed feet kicking at his thighs. “There you go, little . . . guy,” Xander said helplessly. 

The baby gave Xander a horrified look and then threw up all over his chest.

Katie made a clucking sound as she turned, apparently alerted to the situation by some kind of invisible mommy-radar. “Oh, I’m so sorry he spit up on you!” she cried out. She rushed over to the couch. 

“Are you sure that’s what he did?” Xander asked frantically, holding the baby out at arm’s length and trying to remember how close he had his cell phone with Giles’ number on speed dial. He hadn’t seen many instances of demonic vomiting, but there was no way what the baby had just done was Joe Normal spitting up.

Katie laughed and grabbed the baby. Pam hauled over the diaper bag, out of which she triumphantly produced a canister of Handi-Wipes like it was a rabbit out of a hat. Beth tossed Xander a damp dish towel she’d apparently run to the kitchen and back to fetch, and the baby’s dad -- Bill? Rich? Carl? dad-guy? -- wiped the baby’s face down, swiped off his soiled bib, and popped a pacifier into his mouth. The entire process seemed to take less than thirty seconds. 

“Come on,” Riley said, clapping Xander on the shoulder. “Let’s go get you into some clean clothes.”

They were halfway up the stairs before Xander balked and looked behind him at Riley. “Riley, unlike the Exorcist Baby back there, I can dress myself.”

“Are you sure about that?” Riley asked, a twinkle in his eye. “You’re forgetting that I’ve seen how you dress.”

They arrived at the landing and Xander sputtered. “You . . . you don’t even . . . what . . .”

Riley just laughed and pushed ahead of Xander into the guest bedroom. “Look, let me guess. The shirt you wore today, it was great, perfect for something like this. Did Buffy pick it out for you?”

“I’ll have you know that _Dawn_ was the one who helped me buy this shirt,” Xander said indignantly. Riley motioned at him, and Xander unbuttoned his over shirt with a sigh, holding it away from himself and dropping it on the floor. He’d be neat and pick it up later when the shirt didn’t smell so much like baby. 

After a moment’s hesitation, and watching Riley’s casual expression the entire time, he pulled off his t-shirt as well. It wasn’t like Riley hadn’t seen stuff like that before. After all, he’d been in the military -- never mind that, he’d been in a _fraternity_. Plus it seemed like Riley had been bare-chested half the time Xander had gone to see him at his room or apartment, so he was in no position to complain about Xander’s half-naked state. 

He went over to the trunk and poked his hand into his bag. “But just because Dawn helped me buy one thing doesn’t mean the other stuff I have isn’t totally fine -- it’s all Council approved for home visits and everything.”

“Let me see,” Riley murmured. He slid his hand into the bag alongside Xander’s, moving aside the fabric of boxers and t-shirts to get to the dress shirts below. “You should really keep these on top -- see how wrinkled they get?”

Xander didn’t even bother to glance at the tiny creases. “Hey, can we skip the lesson in packing and get to the dressing of me?”

“No problem,” Riley grinned. “Here.”

The blue shirt that Riley held out to him was really nice. Andrew had helped him pick it out the last time he was in London, and there was _no way_ that Riley was getting that information out of him even if he didn’t know who the heck Andrew was. 

“Who picked out this one?” Riley asked, his voice full of amusement.

“Andrew,” Xander answered without thinking. “Fuck,” he added. For some reason it suddenly had seemed incredibly important for Riley to be impressed that Xander had enough taste to pick out the shirt himself. “Sorry, I just didn’t mean to say that.”

Riley still held the shirt in his hands, and when Xander glanced at the material he was startled to see that Riley’s knuckles had gone white.

“Andrew,” Riley said levelly. “Who’s that?”

Xander licked his lips to moisten them. “Oh, Andrew -- well, he was kind of our enemy.”

Riley’s face had gotten pink at his cheeks and temples.

“And then he was our hostage,” Xander said, counting off Andrew’s various roles on his fingers. “Then he helped out while we were facing off The First. And cooked. And then pretty much took care of my during the month after Anya died.”

“That’s . . . ” Riley’s expression softened. “That’s, okay, that’s good. That someone was there.”

“Yeah,” Xander said. “And now he’s a junior Watcher guy.”

Riley cleared his throat. “And he lives in Cleveland with you?” His eyes searched Xander’s face.

“Oh, no, Andrew’s in England. Except for when he’s in Italy. And yeah, he’s been to Cleveland a bunch of times lately, partly because we’re still getting organized.”

“Right, yeah,” Riley said, bobbing his head quickly.

“Then sometimes we email, or talk on the phone, or . . .” Xander trailed off. He was getting that itchy feeling on his skin, the way he did when he was zoning out and then came to realizing something important had been said. But he’d been paying attention all though the conversation. And it wasn’t like they were talking about _Riley’s_ taste in shirts -- it had all been about him. And Andrew, for some reason. 

“That’s important,” Riley said grimly. “Staying in touch with people.”

“Oh, definitely,” Xander agreed. “Especially because he won’t be coming back often at all, now that we’re more established, have permanent trainers, watchers, stuff like that.”

“Okay, yeah,” Riley said. “So he’s not coming back that often.”

They stared at one another for a minute. Then Xander realized that Riley’s gaze had drifted down to his chest.

“You look good,” Riley said finally. He raised his head and blinked at Xander. “I mean, after all of it -- Sunnydale, Anya, Andrew . . .”

“Thanks,” Xander said. “Um . . . I should probably put on a new t-shirt first.”

“Oh, sure.” Riley dropped the button-down shirt on the trunk and stepped away. “Why don’t I let you get going on that, and I’ll just meet you downstairs.”

“ ‘Kay,” Xander said distantly as Riley left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him. He pulled the t-shirt over his head, wondering why he felt so warm standing around bare-chested in a drafty room at the end of November.


	3. Chapter 3

“What did you say it was that you do, Xander?” one of Riley’s various uncles asked him as Pam and two of the other women were pointing out to everyone where they should sit around the large dining room table.

“I’m . . . well, I travel a lot,” Xander said. He held his drink up in the air to avoid sloshing it over three small boys shoving one another as they made their way towards the kitchen.

“Yeah, Xander showed us his passport,” Jackson said as he turned up suddenly at Xander’s elbow. “He’s been all over. Africa. Europe.” He chewed the last of whatever appetizer had been in his mouth thoughtfully. “And Duluth. That’s where he was last.”

“Isn’t that something?” the uncle said heartily.

“Sounds like a great job. What company do you work for?” Katie’s husband Rich asked curiously.

“Um . . . well, I’m based out of Cleveland. And our headquarters are in England,” Xander said. He cleared his throat as he realized that he had no kind of pat answer ready about the Council and the Slayers. Point of fact, he couldn’t remember anyone before pressing him about what he did for a living. Maybe it was because he spent next to no time around people who weren’t working for the exact same evil-fighting organization.

“Riley, maybe there would be an opportunity at that company for you,” Pam’s sister Lynn said brightly. “It sounds like a wonderful place to work. And you like traveling, or at least you did when you were in the service.”

“I don’t think that organization is really looking for anyone like me,” Riley said, smiling tightly.

“Well, you need to get yourself a job eventually,” Carl, one of Riley’s uncles, said. “Even though you’ve got that pension, you can’t just stay on with your parents the way you have been, even if it is because of some woman. Damn shame, seeing you waste your potential.”

There was barely a pause before everyone around them burst out in animated conversation to smooth over whatever silence had followed after Carl’s pronouncement. More than one person had looked askance at his words, and a few people still seemed upset, leaving Xander with the feeling that Carl wasn’t so much known far and wide for his charm and social grace.

But the way everyone was determined to shift the focus away from Riley made it obvious that similar feelings and curiosities existed in their minds as well -- why it was he’d gotten divorced, what he was doing at home, how it was that he had no prospects after a strong career in the military.

Xander cleared his throat, and a few people in the room turned toward him expectantly. “Yeah, what I do for a job,” Xander began, and then coughed. Taking the floor to distract everyone from pointedly _not_ talking about Riley probably would have been a better idea if he’d actually had something distracting to say. Across the room, someone nodded encouragingly at him, and he rushed to continue. “I, uh, you were wondering why I travel so much, and the truth of it is that . . .”

As he wracked his brain for an end to that sentence, the odd assumption of the girl from the souvenir store found its way to his tongue. “So, the thing of it is, I’m a talent scout,” he blurted.

Jackson pivoted in his path towards the kitchen, where he’d been headed reluctantly after Pam reminded him that he still had to sit at the children’s table despite the fact that he was only half a head shorter than Riley.

“No kidding,” he said enthusiastically. “Like with models? Swimsuit models?”

“Bet you’re never sorry when you have to go to work,” one of Ross’ cousins observed with a knowing nod. “All those pretty young things.”

“No, no,” Xander hurried to get off the supermodel association train of thought. “More like . . .talent scouting for a school. A school for really athletic teenage girls. Who are big-time strong, and fight . . . fight to be the best!”

“Isn’t that something?” the same uncle from before said heartily.

“They sound like tough girls,” Pam put in. She nudged a few more people towards the table until everyone began to take their places.

“Don’t get me started,” Xander said.

“What’s the name of the school?” Rich asked.

“Uh . . . Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters,” Xander said quickly, and tried not to cringe.

* * *

“That’s some school you work for. You’re lucky my relatives aren’t exactly up to speed on X-Men stuff,” Riley said in a wry voice as he and Xander slipped into the kitchen. After many toasts and helpings of everything on offer, dinner had finally started to wind down, and the two of them had escaped from the table as soon as the getting was good.

“All right, so I panicked with the school name. But hey, it’s not so far off the mark.”

Riley grinned and took out a beer from the refrigerator, handing it to Xander and pulling out another before grabbing a bottle opener off the counter.

The voices at the dining room table now sounded quiet, muffled as the two of them clinked longnecks and drank. The occasional shriek of laughter could be heard from the basement -- the kids must have finished their food and escaped downstairs before the adults were done lingering over coffee. Even in a house full of people, Xander felt oddly like he and Riley were the only ones around.

“You know, it’s not a bad idea,” Xander said after a few moments. “In fact, it’s a great one. Best idea I haven’t had myself but then fully threw my weight behind in a while.”

When Riley looked at him blankly, Xander hastened to explain. “You coming to work for the Council. Like your aunt said.”

“Oh, that,” Riley said with a shake of his head. “That was just -- don’t worry about it, okay? They’re just not sure what to make of me right now, after what happened. All right, so it’s true; I don’t really know what I’m going to do next. But don’t feel like you’ve got to make a gesture just because of that.”

“But I really am making it,” Xander protested. “So it’s not a gesture, it’s a . . . whatever a real thing that’s the opposite of a gesture is. I mean, why not? You’re just about the perfect candidate. You’re already in the know. You’ve dealt with supernatural stuff from a bunch of different angles.”

“Look, Xander,” Riley started.

“And we’re a growing organization with lots of room for development and upward mobility . . . and I cannot believe how much I’m sounding like an actual business guy right now.”

Riley took a swig of his beer. “I don’t think so. It would be . . . Okay, it’s not like I have feelings for Buffy anymore, not like that. But it just seems like it’d be a step back. Fighting with the slayer gang was what I was doing before I got back on track with my own mission.”

“Hey, this isn’t a one-woman led gang anymore,” Xander said gently. “Lots of slayers. Bunches of missions. I wasn’t kidding when I said that things had gone global.” He saw Riley was watching him now with an appraising look, so he brought out the big guns. “Plus we’ve got great dental.”

Leaning against the cabinets, Riley placed his beer on the counter and then crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me think about it.”

“Well, okay,” Xander allowed. He put his own beer down as well. “As long as that’s not code for ‘nope, no way, not a chance in hell’.”

Riley laughed. “It’s code for ‘maybe’.” He shook his head, but he was smiling.

Xander leaned against the counter next to him. “Well, I can tell you it’d be great to have another guy on board at home base. Because I swear, if I go through another month with the International House of Cycling-Together-Slayers, I’ll --”

“Wait,” Riley said sharply. “Wait, you’re saying that I wouldn’t just get deployed off to wherever it is that they need me most?”

“Most definitely not. I mean, not unless you want to go to the ends of the earth. To . . . Lima, or you know, Oklahoma. Because those are options. Did you know Tulsa had a zombie thing recently?” Xander paused and then got back on track. “But if you can handle another Hellmouth, I’d love for you to come back with me to Cleveland.”

Riley tilted his head to the side, regarding Xander intently as he edged a little bit closer to him. “And you’re not just inventing need, here, bringing me in because you feel bad that I’m not looking at a whole lot of options right now.”

“No,” Xander said firmly. “There’s definitely need.”

He stopped and considered. It wasn’t just a line. Sure, he hadn’t known that he would run into Riley Finn on this particular girl-search, but now that he had, he was beginning to feel like it was the hand of karma. Or the fists of fate.

Xander shrugged off his search for the perfect metaphor of inevitability and instead turned to reach out and clasp Riley firmly on the arm. “Hey,” he said, his voice serious and low as he met Riley’s gaze. “I need you there.”

Riley’s eyes met his. After a second, Riley turned also and rested his hand over Xander’s on his arm. To Xander he looked . . . open-hearted, the way he had when he used to just gaze at Buffy sometimes. But when Riley opened his mouth to speak, Pam bustled into the room.

“Now don’t let me go interrupting you,” she said. “I’m just ducking in here to get more of that coffee started, and maybe to put away those rolls, because --” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless you boys have eaten them up already.”

Both Riley and Xander quickly held up their hands in a display of innocence, taking a step away from one another as they did so.

“See, no crumbs,” Xander added, jerking his chin towards his shirt front. “And you’ve already seen how I’m not really a clean and subtle roll-eater, so there you go.”

“Guess we better get back to the table,” Riley said, bumping Xander’s arm accidentally-on-purpose. He smiled at his mom, and Xander was struck by the fact that he looked the happiest he had since they’d happened upon one another the day before.

“You go ahead; Xander will help me get some of these pies and toppings ready to serve,” Pam said briskly.

“I will? I mean, okay,” Xander said.

“That’s how you tell for sure that she likes you, Xander. When she’s putting you to work,” Riley tossed over his shoulder as he headed back towards the dining room.

While Pam turned towards the counter for a moment and fussed with some of the desserts and serving utensils, Xander leaned against the refrigerator, hands in his pockets, awaiting instruction. The moment stretched on for longer than he’d expected, and as he looked around the room his mind began to wander a little.

Funny how he’d never thought about most of his friends as kids -- Willow being the exception because he’d grown up alongside her through lost teeth and growth spurts and awkward years. But with the other people he knew, his imagination never stretched back to wonder what they’d been like as children.

So maybe it was being in Riley’s childhood home, with photos of him on mantles and walls and on top of the upright piano in the sitting room. Because right now he was picturing a sandy-haired kid frowning over his math homework at the kitchen table, or a too-tall gawky teenager doing the dishes with a minimum of grumbling. Maybe an almost-adult Riley sitting at the table with his parents, telling them only the bare details about shipping off to a little town in California.

Then Pam’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“You know, there are some ways of going about life you don’t think you can understand or accept,” she said. “You want certain things for your children. But then . . . sometimes life doesn’t work out like you expected.”

Xander nodded agreeably, even though she couldn’t see him do it. He knew all about life not working out like he’d expected.

She turned slightly. “And then one day you realize that all you want for your kids is for them to be happy.”

Xander nodded slowly. He had that itchy feeling on his skin again, like he had earlier when Riley had helped him pick out a fresh shirt from his duffel bag. “Sure,” he offered.

“Riley’s our only,” she continued after giving him a small smile. “‘Course, you know that. So maybe we put too much pressure on him to want particular things, or feel he has to prove himself.” She turned fully and gently transferred a cooled apple pie into Xander’s hands. “You seem like a good man, Xander.”

“Thanks," Xander said in confusion.

She touched his arm briefly. “Maybe having just him can let us be easier on him too. He’s our son, and we’ll never have another. So however he wants to live his life . . . we’ll love him no matter what.”

Xander shifted from one foot to another. “You know . . . the company I work for; they might really want to hire him. I was telling him how great it would be to have him working with me in Cleveland.”

“I think that’d be a fine thing,” she said softly. Then she gave him a little business-like shove. “Come on now. Time to get dessert out onto the table.”


	4. Chapter 4

Finally after a few more hours of pie and conversation, most of the guests had exclaimed over the time, assured Riley’s mom Pam that she had outdone herself, shaken Riley’s dad Ross’ hand vigorously, and gone home.

Only a few people remained, and to Xander it seemed that these were probably relatives who were around Pam and Ross’s place more often than not. One of Pam’s sisters chattered with her as they efficiently stripped the table and wrapped food. Two of Ross’ cousins stuck around to watch some of the taped football game with him, the three of them comfortably ensconced in the basement’s easy chairs with beers in hand making the most silent armchair quarterbacks that Xander had ever witnessed.

After they’d helped put away the things that needed to be put away in top shelves, Riley and Xander stood around in the dining room awkwardly until they half-smiled at each other. Riley cleared his throat. “So, what do you want to do n--”

“Are you boys going to go out tonight?” Riley's mom asked as she came in from the kitchen. She sounded vaguely wistful as she picked up the empty bread basket and clutched it to her chest. “When Riley was in high school, he and his buddies would always go out bowling after we got home from the Thanksgiving meal. Ross never believed the bowling places would be open, but seems like they were every year.”

Riley started to shake his head, looking somehow shamefaced for not having rollicking good clean fun post-dinner plans with a horde of corn-fed high-school pals. Pam turned her attention to stowing the basket away in the hutch, pausing to straighten a few things on the shelves while she was at it, but not before Xander had seen her uncomfortable expression at Riley’s reaction. It was like a special kind of Midwestern mother-son code that Xander was just starting to crack.

He cleared his throat. “I’d be up for going out. You know, keeping with tradition and everything. I don’t know how bowling-ready I am right now; all the traveling has kept me away from my very own set of shoes and monogrammed ball for too long. But we could go get a drink somewhere, if that’s cool.”

Riley looked at him in surprise. “That . . . yeah, I’d like that.”

“Well, I think that's a fine idea,” Pam put in. “Let me just go ask Riley’s dad about some of the sports bars that’ll be open in town tonight. Don’t want the two of you wandering around for too long before you find a spot.”

“No, you know, you don’t have to do that,” Riley said slowly. “There's a place in Des Moines I've been thinking about checking out. I mean, if Xander doesn’t mind the trip.”

“You see?” Xander said. “Just like old times with your friends. Except that there’ll be alcohol. And no rented shoes.”

“Great,” Riley said, smiling genuinely. “That'd be great. It’s just a little over thirty minutes north of here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Xander said agreeably. Even with all of the slightly confusing conversations and goings on at the House of Finn, he was absolutely sure he could handle an after-dinner drink with Riley. In fact, given the way that both Riley and Pam were smiling at him a little too brightly, a drink sounded very much in order.

* * *

The trip had been less than thirty minutes -- about twenty-five or so, during at least twenty of which Riley had seemed preoccupied and Xander been left to watch the fairly uninteresting sites of the highway go by. Then they’d arrived at a parking lot much bigger than the usual ones attached to sports bars or hole-in-the-wall dives. But Xander didn’t want to bug Riley with questions about that. Besides, he was distracted enough. There was something about the excursion seemed to be a little weird for a reason that he couldn’t put his finger on.

Of course, once they were inside, and had ordered their drinks, the weird became clear. Well, clear once Xander’s eyes had adjusted to the dark lighting.

“Uh, Riley?” Xander asked.

“Yeah,” Riley said absently. He took a swig from his beer bottle and scanned what was visible of the room from the flashing lights and darkened dance floor.

“This isn't a bar,” Xander continued.

“It _has_ a bar,” Riley pointed out, gesturing at Xander with his half-empty bottle.

“But it's a club. A dance club,” Xander said.

“So?” Riley kept his eyes focused on their surroundings. “We used to go to the Bronze all the time, and that was more of a club than a bar.”

“Riley, it's a _gay_ dance club.” Xander said it very slowly and clearly so that Riley would definitely understand him.

“I think I figured that part out already,” Riley said with a nervous smile. Suddenly two men slammed against the bar counter next to them, both of them sweaty from their time on the dance floor. They laughed about something before they began kissing and twining their arms around each other.

“Did you know it was a gay dance club before you decided we should come here for an after-Thanksgiving drink?” Xander asked incredulously. “Hey, is this where you and your friends went when your mom thought you were going bowling? You haven’t dragged me along to some kind of wacky Iowan see-how-the-other-half lives holiday ritual, have you?”

Riley grinned at him. “No, we really went bowling. And this is really the first time I’ve been here. I just thought . . . “ He trailed off, and Xander could just make out the flush on his cheeks despite the darkness. “Forget it.”

“What?” Xander asked.

“I guess I didn’t think you’d mind, you know, with you and Andrew . . .”

“Me and Andrew. Okay, there’s something I’m not getting here. You thought that . . . wait. Me and _Andrew_?” he squawked. “I didn’t -- what I said -- after Anya -- you thought --”

“Hey, slow down,” Riley said with concern. “You’re going to start hyperventilating.”

Xander took a breath and collected himself. “Okay. You thought I was gay with Andrew, and you wanted to bring me here so I could be among my people on this Thanksgiving Day. Or you just figured, hey, gay houseguest, let's make him dance for his dinner on a pulsating dance floor square like the man-loving monkey that he is.”

“No,” Riley responded quickly. He paused, his expression suddenly confused. “Man loving monkey?”

“Just a spontaneous freaking out phrase,” Xander said with a wave of his hand.

Riley still seemed confused, but he gamely tried again. “Well, no, I didn’t think either of those things. But you’re right about the Andrew -- and _weren’t_ you? Because when you described things between you and him, it sure sounded like . . . you know.”

“No. A thousand times no,” Xander said. “As much as Andrew was interested -- no, nothing ever happened.”

“Oh,” Riley said simply. From the look on his face, it wasn’t clear whether he was pleased or put off.

Around them the beat of the music sped up, and the kissing couple next to them headed back to the dance floor. A few men near them arrived, ordered drinks, and left, while a few others took up positions near them for their own conversations.

“And it’s not some see how the other half lives situation,” Riley muttered.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Xander asked loudly. “I was too busy removing my ass from that guy’s groping hand.”

The guy in question, a man who seemed like he’d stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch photo-spread, shrugged and smiled before moving away from the bar with his beer.

Riley blinked rapidly. “I said I didn’t bring you here to see how the other half lives. And even if I thought you had some kind of relationship with whoever Andrew is, that’s not why I brought you here either.”

Xander swiped his hand down the length of his face. “Okay. Why are we here? Because I can tell you right now that it’s not for the very expensive and extremely limited beer selection.”

Riley shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and swallowed. “I guess . . . I knew about it, and . . . I was just a little . . . I didn't want to come here by myself. I’m sorry I wasn’t totally clear about it. I really didn’t think it would bother you.”

Xander groaned. “Okay, I’m officially a big jerk. No, I don’t mind; it’s just -- _you_ don’t mind? I mean, not just not mind, but --” He stopped himself before he said something else stupid.

“Look, Xander . . .” Riley sighed. “It was . . . I've been thinking. Since Sam. Since Buffy. I'm just not -- I don't think I've done that well with women.”

Xander motioned with his palm up, ready to launch a rebuttal of that. Riley, gay? Riley, not good with women? That was crazy talk. Riley was handsome and smart and dependable. He was the guy who had your back -- definitely the kind of guy you wanted to toss around a baseball with, and great about getting a buddy to leave a bar when he got too drunk and didn't realize he was about to throw up in front of his friends. He was probably the best person Xander could think of to watch a kung fu movie with, and always up for getting pancakes late at night when they'd been out on patrol together, and he was . . . he was Riley. Girls liked Riley. Riley liked girls. Didn’t he?

“So I thought,” Riley went on after clearing his throat. “I thought maybe I should . . . try other options.”

Xander shook his shoulders out a little and tried to calm down. The idea of Riley being gay was still not taking hold. Riley was the guy who was forever in love with Buffy, the guy who went off nobly into the night to pursue the mission even when it meant giving Buffy up, the guy who swooped back in and saved people from Certain Danger and brushed them off discreetly before sending them back to their normal lives. He was the guy who remembered the words to his state song, and invited people who didn't have anywhere else to go back to his family's house for Thanksgiving. He was normal guy. Well, no, that wasn’t right either. Riley wasn't normal. None of them were normal.

“You don't just up and decide that you're gay,” Xander announced. “You have to think men are hot.”

Someone passing by them snorted, but Xander ignored that.

“I don't . . . I've found men attractive before,” Riley said in a low voice. “It’s not just bad luck with women, or a random decision. I don’t think I’m exactly pulling this out of thin air, Xander.”

Xander laughed. “Yeah, but . . . sure, it’s one thing to think another guy’s attractive. Or even say out loud that he’s hot, because that’s just a factual type thing. The first time I saw Angel, even I could tell he was hot, and I definitely never liked him the entire time I knew him. And for all that Spike always bugged me, I could completely tell that he was a hottie, even though that bad boy thing never really did it for me personally. And you, when you were in Sunnydale, even before I knew you were very much with the cool authoritative soldier guy routine that’s a turn-on, I could so tell you were that sexy boy-next-door type, and I thought Buffy was crazy to let you go when you left.”

Riley’s lips parted and his eyes widened.

“But none of that makes me gay,” Xander said emphatically. “Or I mean . . . it doesn’t make _you_ gay.”

Riley shut his mouth and narrowed his eyes. Xander almost bit his tongue, worried that he’d again said something totally rude to this new and maybe-gay version of Agent Finn. But then Riley threw back his head and laughed helplessly.

“What?” Xander asked. “What?”

“What about Oz?” Riley asked. His voice was filled with amusement.

“Oh, sure, _Oz_ ,” Xander said briskly. “Oz is completely cool, and the band membership only increases his levels of jump-ability. Plus he’s all mysterious, with the not-talking so much, and the way he dyed his hair always made him seem a little kinky, and that’s always sexy.”

“But you’re not gay,” Riley said. His eyes were twinkling.

“I’ve had lots of sex with women,” Xander said defensively. He stopped. “Well, mostly with Anya. But it really was a lot of sex.”

Riley ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, sure, I know that. And I’ve had sex with women, obviously. But . . . okay, maybe bisexual is a better word.”

“Yeah, maybe we’re bisexual,” Xander found himself saying. He stared at his beer, as though that had somehow gotten him to blurt out those words. “I mean, maybe _you’re_ \--”

“Xander,” Riley said gently. “It’s fine. I made a mistake when I assumed what I did about you. I’m not trying to push, okay? I just . . . thought maybe you would understand.”

They were silent for a moment, and Xander turned to get them two more beers. When he shifted back around, Riley was watching him with an unreadable expression, but he quickly looked away when Xander met his gaze.

“What?” Xander asked with a sigh.

“You, uh . . .” Riley looked as though he was trying his damnedest not to grin, but it so wasn’t working. “You thought I was the sexy boy-next-door type?”

Xander took a healthy gulp of his beer. “Um. I said that part out loud, didn’t I?”

“And you thought Buffy was crazy to let me go,” Riley continued. He’d obviously given up on not smiling, and was now grinning widely at Xander.

“Well, yeah,” Xander said uncomfortably. “It’s not like a guy like you just comes around any day of the week.”

Riley nodded, looking down at the floor but unable to shake the grin.

“Okay, fine,” Xander said in a grumpy voice. “So I’m a little gay for you.”

“Finally,” the bartender said enthusiastically. They both jumped at the interjection, and Xander scowled at the bartender until he moved away with a wink.

“Well, like I said, I’ve found men attractive before,” Riley offered.

“Just men in general?” Xander asked. He didn’t realize that he’d licked his lips until he saw Riley’s eyes trained on his mouth.

“I’ve thought it about more than one guy,” Riley admitted. “But . . . uh, yeah. You were definitely one of them.”

“Back in Sunnydale, huh?” Xander asked. For some reason his throat kept feeling dry, so he took another swig of beer.

“In Sunnydale,” Riley answered, bobbing his head. “And, uh . . . here.”

“In the club, you mean.”

“No, more like . . . the entire time you’ve been visiting.”

Xander turned his head so he wouldn’t grin at Riley like an idiot. “So what do we do now?” he asked after a moment.

“Should we -- we could dance,” Riley said in a rush.

Xander gazed out onto the dance floor, filled with happy-looking, fun-having gyrating men in tight-fitting t-shirts. “I guess we could -- I could dance --”

“I don't really dance,” Riley said miserably.

“Neither do I,” Xander confided. “I mean, I _do_. But I probably shouldn't.”

“Then I have no idea what we should do,” Riley said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath.

“Well.” Xander took in their surroundings, considering. “Dancing is now out. Drinking, we could keep doing that, but that's more a thing you do when your goal is to take someone home -- which you are _not_ doing, because you need to take me home, since I don't have anyplace else to stay tonight, and you’re my ride.” Xander took a sip of his beer. “And besides, your mom would freak if you brought home some stranger. I mean, after the standard Thanksgiving invitation of strangers allowance period.”

“But I need to take you home,” Riley said lightly. “And you weren’t a stranger before, even though my mom hadn’t met you, and you’re definitely not one now.”

“Right,” Xander said, nodding. “So . . . even though this has all been a sort of weird and kind of freaky, and I’ve been a big jerk and wigged out and in more than a little denial . . . how about we go back to your place?”

Riley nodded and brushed his hand against the small of Xander’s back as he smiled at him. “Sounds like a plan.”


	5. Chapter 5

The drive back to the Finns’ went much more quickly than expected.

Other times Riley seemed awfully law-abide-y, but right now his breakneck speed was tempting Xander to ask him where he’d gotten the lead foot. He didn’t bother, though, because he had plenty to focus on with “how long have I been part gay?” and “Riley thought I was hot back in Sunnydale?” and “can’t this car go any _faster_?” running through his head.

Finally they were climbing the stairs to Riley’s room in silence, and Xander spared a moment to give solemn thanks that the Finns’ bedroom was way over on the other side of the house.

“Hey,” Riley said quietly. He shrugged off his jacket, and then reached out to ease Xander’s coat off his shoulders. His hand brushed over Xander’s arm, as though he was smoothing out the fabric.

“Hey,” Xander said back. He cleared his throat, and tried a smile. Then Riley was unbuttoning the shirt he had picked out for Xander earlier, no longer to be known as the blue shirt Andrew had helped Xander buy, but as his blue Get-Lucky-with-Riley shirt.

“Oh boy,” Xander exhaled when Riley pressed his palms against Xander’s chest, lightly massaging against the cotton of his t-shirt. Not at all the way he’d expected his trip to Iowa to go. Way, way better, but still, the complete surprise factor was making him have to catch his breath.

“This okay?” Riley asked. He paused, and when Xander nodded after a second, he nodded back, cupping Xander’s jaw with his hand and very slowly bringing their mouths together in a kiss. And that went on for a while, soft lips, softer sounds, Xander a little dizzy from the unexpected development of having to tilt his head upwards, both of them inching forward until they was no space between them.

“Xander, I don’t want to rush you,” Riley whispered when they finally drew apart. “But I kind of want to yank your shirt off.”

“Oh, well. I mean, it’s hot in here anyway,” Xander said. He solved the issue by crossing his arms and pulling his shirt off himself.

It only took a moment for them to step back together, Xander soon tugging Riley’s sweater and t-shirt up and off to fall in a heap of Shetland wool and cotton on the floor. This time the kiss became surer, more intense, the feel of skin-on-skin making every other sensation sharper, and it wasn’t long before Riley and Xander tumbled down to the floor together alongside Riley’s discarded sweater.

Then Riley was shifting on top of him, Xander was moving in counterpoint, and it had pretty much gone straight to rubbing off against each other territory, oddly familiar from high school but exciting and new at the same time with the very obvious fact of Riley’s guy-ness. “Want to move this . . . oh god . . . to the bed?” Xander gasped out.

“Floor’s better,” Riley whispered. “Just in case. No . . . uh . . . no squeaky springs.”

“Smart,” Xander agreed, letting his head thunk back against the carpet as Riley’s hand skimmed over his button fly and then rested there.

“Am I going too fast?” Riley murmured as he kissed Xander on the neck. He slipped his fingers down further, rubbing along the inseam of the denim.

“Are you serious?” Xander asked incredulously. In case there was any doubt, he tilted his hips upward, pressing into Riley’s touch.

Riley murmured something unintelligible as he kissed Xander again, maneuvering his fingers to work Xander’s buttons open at the same time.

“Fuck,” Xander whispered when Riley’s warm large hand had pushed his jeans and boxers down, and was finally stroking up and down his cock. “Fuck, Riley . . .”

It took only a few awkward tugs at Riley’s trousers before Riley got the message and unfastened them, tangling pants and underwear as he pushed them over his hips. When Riley settled back on top of him, Xander gasped at the contact, moving closer in reaction, and then kept moving in a rolling motion because it felt so good. Time sped up as they both kicked off their pants, and slowed down as Xander trailed a finger up Riley’s hard length. He looked up, watching Riley's eyes flutter half-closed, before taking a deep breath and wrapping his fingers around Riley’s erection.

As amazing as every intent touch felt and every sharp breath sounded, in the rush of tipping over the edge Xander suddenly felt like he should stop and confess how unplanned and unfamiliar all of this was. Iowa had never been on his list of places to go. Seeing Riley again wasn’t something he’d imagined would happen. The entire holiday of family, conversations, and watching pieces of himself he’d never thought to connect get put together was foreign and more than a little frightening.

But instead Xander gripped Riley’s shoulder and cried out softly as he came. And Riley’s whispered, “I’ve got you,” was exactly what he wanted to hear.

* * *

“You are so totally chivalrous.”

They had managed to crawl up onto the bed together afterwards. Unlike the night before when they had shared the same mattress as a how’d-that-happen type thing, now Riley lifted the blanket in open invitation and Xander went right ahead and shimmied underneath it.

“Chivalrous, huh?” When Riley laughed Xander could see the faint blush on his cheeks. “Okay,” Riley said with a shake of his head. He nudged Xander’s arm with his, and Xander nudged back. “As long as that’s a good thing. Because I wouldn’t want, you know, to make you feel as if --”

“It was great. Pretty much everyone I’ve ever been with has just jumped me the first time, no questions asked first. And come to think of it, they didn’t really ask questions later.”

“That what it was like with . . . you said something about Spike back there?” Riley teased.

“Hey! You don’t want me to take back the chivalrous thing, do you? I can’t say enough about how much I’ve never done anything like this before.” Xander stopped, watching as Riley turned to brush fingertips up and down his arm. “And by the way, that’s your cue to say ‘Really? I would never have guessed if you hadn’t told me!’ ”

“I would never have guessed,” Riley said. He grinned. “So I’m definitely the first guy you’ve . . .”

“Yes,” Xander affirmed. He rolled his eyes. “And stop smiling like that.”

“Won’t say it’s not nice to hear,” Riley said.

“Yeah, okay, you’re a super stud and you’re the first guy who got me in bed,” Xander said. This only seemed to make Riley’s smile bigger. “Um. But with you . . . well, am I? The first guy, I mean.”

When the answer didn’t come right away, Xander raised himself on his elbows expectantly.

“Oh.” Riley looked slightly embarrassed. “Well, you know. I did live in a fraternity house.”

Xander blinked. “Yet another way I apparently missed out on the fun college thing. You’re serious? Next you’re going to tell me that you were getting down with your Initiative buddies.”

Riley cleared his throat.

Xander groaned and slumped back down. “Riley, you do not want to let me guess which one of those clean cut and muscular men you had wild and tawdry man-love with.”

“Okay. No guessing.” Riley turned onto his back and flung his leg over Xander’s with a contented sigh.

“Was it Graham?” Xander asked immediately. “Because he was all into you; anyone could tell that. Hey, wasn’t he the one who got you to leave Sunnydale? That has former-fumbling-in-the-dark written all over it. Plus, you know, he’s buff good-looking crew-cut guy.”

“You think Graham is good-looking?” Riley asked. He paused. “You like crew cuts?”

“Oh, no. Your hair is better.”

“Well, we’re definitely not inviting Graham to come visit us in Cleveland.”

“I swear to you that I will not jump your former friend-plus if he comes to visit.” Xander yawned and tried not to picture Riley and Graham together, naked and crew-cut sporting. Then he went ahead and pictured them together on purpose. If he was going to be part-gay, he might as well take advantage of it.

“Okay,” Riley said in the anxious voice of someone who has had an answer hounded out of him. “Okay, it was with Forrest, all right? Nothing serious, and we didn’t do anything major. But yeah, a couple of times when we were drunk.”

“Forrest?” Xander asked. He rested his hand on Riley’s thigh. Riley threaded their fingers together and ran his thumb over Xander’s knuckles. “Forrest. Wow, no wonder he never liked Buffy.”

“That was before Buffy was in the picture,” Riley said. He lifted Xander’s hand to his mouth and kissed it.

“Still. But man, Graham, Forrest, you . . . weren’t there any guys in the Initiative who --”

“Xander, not everyone in my unit was bisexual.”

“Hey, I was just going to ask if there weren’t any guys named _Joe_ ,” Xander corrected him. “You’ve got to admit, those are some fancy-pants names for a bunch of soldier boys.” He turned on his side, careful so as not to dislodge Riley’s leg on his, and stretched his arm across Riley’s chest. “So when you were being all unreasonably jealous and saying you weren’t going to invite Graham to Cleveland . . . That means that you’re going to come to Cleveland with me. Right?”

Riley took a deep breath. “I want to. Do you still . . . I just wasn’t sure if it would be weird, you know, now that . . . after we . . . ” He gave Xander a quick glance and then looked away. “I know it can be hard, to have --”

“To have the person not too far away to date?” Xander asked. “Yeah. That sounds like a real hardship.”

Riley laughed. “You know what I mean. If I do go with you, it doesn’t have to mean that we’ll be joined at the hip.”

“Sure, of course not,” Xander said. He coughed. “But if we did end up being joined at the hip . . . it wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing.”

Their eyes met for a few moments, and then Riley grinned. “And then there’s the part where I tell my parents that I’m going to work for your glamorous school for gifted athletic girls.”

Xander gave him an indignant little shove. “Listen buddy, I’d like to see you come up with a better explanation for Slayer-wrangling under pressure.”

“It was a better excuse than being a talent scout,” Riley assured him.

Xander rolled his eyes. “If I weren’t so lazy, I’d thwap you with the free pillow.”

Riley snorted. “Guess I lucked out.”

“Guess so,” Xander said archly. “But seriously, I don’t think you should worry. I already let your mom know that I was going to try to get you on board.”

“Really? Okay, so that means my dad knows about it by now,” Riley said with evident relief. He reached over and massaged Xander’s shoulder. “So . . . that’s what you two were talking about? All those times she made you put out silverware? And carry pies?”

“Yeah, that,” Xander said distractedly. He shifted so that he was half on top of Riley and lowered his head to kiss Riley’s collarbone. When Riley combed his fingers through his hair, Xander hummed and closed his eyes. “Yeah. Oh, and there may have been something about choices and changes,” he said between kisses. “You know. How people expect life to turn out a certain way but then it doesn’t. And how she wants you to be happy.”

“Huh,” Riley said thoughtfully. He kept stroking Xander’s hair, but his touch slowed.

Xander’s eyes opened wide. “Oh god,” he exclaimed. The memory of his last conversation with Riley’s mother suddenly morphed from a random and confusing encounter to a sharply focused and deliberate talk. “Oh god,” he repeated. “I’m pretty sure your mom thinks that we’re already gay for each other.”

“Really?” Riley seemed mildly surprised rather than shocked. He trailed a finger down the nape of Xander’s neck. “Well, that definitely makes things a lot easier.”

Xander opened his mouth but finding he had no good answer to that comment shut it again. But then his lips parted once more when Riley pulled him closer and kissed him softly.

“Oh god,” he said distinctly when they paused.

“What now?” Riley asked, but his tone sounded more amused than anything else.

“You said . . . do you think your dad already knows about that part too? The gay part?”

“What? No,” Riley said quickly.

He and Riley moved apart as if by mutual consent and in the back of his head Xander noted that asking Riley about his dad while lying naked on top of him was a definite buzz-killer. He lay on his stomach and breathed in and out slowly in an attempt not to panic.

“I’ve never had to deal with the dad part of things. I mean, Cordy didn’t want me to meet her dad. I’m not sure whether Faith even knew who or where her dad was. Hell, Anya’s dad was a thousand years into the ground by the time that I took her to the prom.”

“Well, you’re not going to have to worry about my dad much,” Riley said. He shifted, and Xander silently observed that while it wasn’t a hot idea to introduce Riley’s dad into the conversation while they were maybe starting up again, it was apparently an okay thing for Riley to rest his hand on the small of Xander’s back just above the swell of his ass while they were _already_ chatting about parents. “My dad covers the grades and job stuff, but he’s never been really tuned in to whether I’m seeing someone. Can’t imagine that would change all of a sudden. My mom guessing is one thing. But she’s not going to up and tell my dad something like this without asking first.”

“Whew. Okay.” Xander let his cheek rest on the pillow, visions of Ross Finn chasing him with a shotgun slowly fading from his mind’s eye.

“Seems like we’re all set then,” Riley said. His voice was even, but Xander had been around Riley enough -- enough in Sunnydale, enough this weekend -- to hear the edge of uncertainty in it.

“Hey. I asked you before, and I meant it then. But I’ll just ask you again now, now that the preliminary sex-having is behind us.” Xander repositioned himself on his side, sneaking his arm back across Riley’s chest and resting his chin on top of it. “If you think you can handle another Hellmouth, if you think you can handle a whole mess of slayers instead of just the one, if you think you can move to what I’ve been told is the Mistake by the Lake, and if you think you can handle a possible joining at the hip to yours truly -- then I’d love for you to come back with me to Cleveland.”

When he looked at Riley, Riley’s eyes were calm and dark. Xander took a breath and Riley lifted his hand to cup Xander’s cheek. “And I’m not just . . . inventing need,” Xander added.

“You’re not?” Riley asked quietly as he drew Xander closer.

“Nope.” Xander leaned down and brushed their lips together. “Not inventing need. I need you.”

* * *

Two days later they were at the airport terminal, lifting Xander’s duffle bag and Riley’s large backpack out of the trunk of the Finns’ car. Pam had suggested that she and Riley’s father should come inside “to see the boys off,” but Ross had patted the steering wheel and made some vague remarks about the cost of parking in a way that apparently vetoed that plan. So they were exchanging goodbyes at the curbside with Pam while Ross kept the car running.

“You’ll be back at Christmas, you promise?” Pam had said after Riley hugged her goodbye.

“At Christmas, we’ll definitely -- I mean, I will, and if Xander wants --”

“Xander is always welcome,” Pam said emphatically.

“Then we’ll be back at Christmas,” Xander assured her. “What, are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss more of your Finn brand of pie-having holiday fun for anything.” He stuck his hand out at Pam, but she made a _pffttt_ noise and made him hug her instead.

“You’ll do real well at that school, Riley, don’t you worry,” Pam said in a firm voice before taking out her hanky and blowing her nose.

“Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters,” Ross observed to the heating vent as he adjusted it.

“Mom, it’ll be fine,” Riley said, drawing her back in for another hug.

“Don’t want them to miss their flight,” Ross told the pine-tree shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview window. That was enough to get Pam to bustle back into the front seat, waving at Riley and Xander as the car pulled away.

“Yeah, there’s a real chance we’ll miss our flight,” Xander said. “Seeing as how we’re three hours early.”

“It’s good to be prepared,” Riley said with a smile.

“You’re a prepared kind of guy,” Xander noted.

“Not going to deny it.”

“Conscientious,” Xander continued as they headed into the terminal. “And with a good memory.”

“Uh oh,” Riley said under his breath. He tilted his head towards a bank of seats, and Xander followed and sat down with him. “What am I supposed to remember?”

“I mean, hey,” Xander went on as though Riley hadn’t spoken. “Turns out you’re the kind of guy who even remembers the name of his state song from eighth grade graduation.”

For a moment Riley looked blank, but then he laughed, apparently remembering the conversation at the gift shop the first day they had run into each other. “Remember the name? Come on, give me more credit than that. I remember all the words too.”

Xander sat back in the seat and regarded Riley. “Okay. Sing me some of it.”

“Hey, remember from the other night when I explained how I don't dance? Well, I don’t dance, but I _really_ don’t sing,” Riley said quickly.

Xander made a show of checking out his watch. “We have two hours before we even need to think about getting through the gate security. Plenty of time for a little state spirit.”

Riley made a choking sound.

“You’re not embarrassed by your state song, are you?” Xander asked with wide eyes.

A moment later Riley took a quick glance to make sure no one was close to them, and then began to sing quietly.  


> _You asked what land I love the best,_  
>  Iowa, ‘tis Iowa,  
>  The fairest State of all the west,  
>  Iowa, O! Iowa,  
>  From yonder Mississippi’s stream  
>  To where Missouri's waters gleam  
>  O! fair it is as poet's dream,  
>  Iowa, in Iowa 

“What do you talk, you can’t sing?” Xander said when Riley paused. “You have a really nice voice.”

“I didn’t say that I can’t sing,” Riley corrected him. “I said that I don’t sing.”

“That’s the whole song?” Xander asked.

Riley faltered, and then laughed. He sang through another verse, again checking to make sure nobody was watching or listening. When he got to the last few lines he turned to Xander, and there it was again on his face, the open-hearted look that he’d had when Xander first asked Riley to come to Cleveland with him.

> _O! happiest fate that e'er was known._  
>  Such eyes to shine for one alone,  
>  To call such beauty all his own.  
>  Iowa, O! Iowa 

Xander bumped Riley’s shoulder with his and just for a moment reached to squeeze Riley’s hand. “Now that really says _Iowa_ to me.”

Riley raised his eyebrows. “When we finally do get to Cleveland, I’m going to make you do all kinds of things for me.” He seemed momentarily stymied, but then finished, “ _Cleveland_ things.”

Xander grinned. “I’m pretty sure you’ll find that’s okay with me.”

*~*~** The End **~*~*  



End file.
